Strip neatly stacked his pile of received letters in the corner of his room and hid them under the box of film reels. Later that night he'd write another one and send it. It gave him something to look forward to in between his weekends of freedom, and something to think about during the day. These last few months had been incredibly fulfilling.
Every Saturday morning he'd fly to North Carolina, and every Sunday night he'd return. Wayne and company introduced him to something new each weekend, everything from bonfires at night to the state fair. Who knew that putting a marshmallow on a stick and roasting it would result in such a tasty treat? He hadn't known that.
And Lynda. He'd fallen for her harder than his last crash. They spent every spare moment they could with each other, inside and outside group settings. She showed him the stars, and the constellations she'd made up on her own. She taught him how to catch lightning bugs in a jar at night just for the fun of it. They parked close to each other on bonfire nights, not really saying anything, just enjoying each other's company. How was he supposed to know that genuine shows of affection would be so darn intoxicating? In the few months that they'd known each other, their correspondence had already greatly outnumbered the letters he and Wayne had sent over the past year, keeping in touch. These letters were treasures.
Of course he couldn't stop catching slack for any of his recent developments. While Izzy was the only one at the factory that knew about his newly founded relationship, her commentary was more than enough to keep him preoccupied. "You left for one day. One day!" "You're gonna get your heart broken, I hope you know that." "Stop worrying about being perfect, just be yourself." It was a constant back and forth between ridicule and actual advice, but he didn't mind. Either way, she was still kind to him and supported him, unlike the others.
It quickly became obvious that Strip had been granted privileges the others didn't have. It wasn't that they wanted what he had, as they were content working and training, hanging around each other. It was simply the fact that his privileges further differentiated him from them, and according to the rumors, "the winner gets to do what they want". Diego wanted nothing more than to take that from him, and to win their nonexistent competition.
Having secured his belongings, Strip exited his room and moseyed around a bend in the hallway to Izzy's room. Every Wednesday at about this time they went on their weekly drive around the premises to talk, and this week, he actually had something to talk about that wasn't complaining.
"Going somewhere?" a sudden wall of Lime Light green cut him off.
"What do you want, Diego?" Strip sighed, agitated.
The other Superbird smiled and turned to face him. "Oh, nothing, I just wanted to say that was a heck of a match you had with Matt yesterday on the training grounds. He's still complaining about an aching control arm."
"I am not!" a voice shouted from across the adjacent common room. Strip looked over and counted ten cars – every member of the brigade except Izzy, milling aimlessly around the room. Something didn't feel right. There were too many watchful eyes.
"I just wanted to ask what that's like." Diego continued, an edge creeping into his voice. "What's it like to win all the time?"
"It's not a competition." Strip said firmly. "No one here is winnin' anything. It's training. We're doing what we were built for."
"Is that so?" Diego mused, narrowing his eyes. "Then tell me, why are we all always being compared to each other?"
The common room had grown silent, and all eyes were on them. Strip hesitated, choosing his words and wishing Izzy was there. She'd put them all in their places. They'd listen to her.
"It's statistics, man. Math." Strip shrugged. "Not that I expect you to understand that, but it helps Rick gauge our performance. It's not personal. Now if you'll excuse me I – "
Strip tried to push his way past, but Diego didn't take too kindly to insult. In a burst of anger, he rammed Strip into the wall and held him there, trembling with rage. Strip winced as he felt his front fenders buckle, pinched between Diego and the concrete wall. Those dents weren't going to pull out easily.
"Now you listen, here." Diego growled. "I am sick and tired of coming in behind you, and I'm half tempted to do something about it."
"I'm not gonna stop you." Strip protested, pushing away from the wall. "If you wanna 'win', then be better!"
Diego uttered a guttural sound of discontent and jabbed Strip back against the wall. That was enough. Strip saw red for the briefest moment and instantly decided to stop putting up with this dissidence. He pushed away from the wall again and shoved Diego away from him. Rubber squealed on laminate, drowning out the whispers and exclamations from the bystanders.
Before Diego could gain his bearings and react, Strip spun around slammed Diego into the opposing wall with his rear bumper, creating a long horizontal crease down the green car's side.
"Hey!" a loud, raspy voice shouted from down the hall.
Izzy had surfaced from her room after hearing the ruckus, and was now angrily bearing down on them. Something with that much hot pink paint should never look that angry.
"What the hell is wrong with you two?" she positioned herself between them, looking between her little brother's dented fenders and Diego's bumper-shaped crinkle. "I swear, if you don't grow up, I'm go- "
A shrill alarm caught everyone off guard, as the floor beneath them shook ever so slightly. Woop. Woop. Woop. They'd never actually heard the sound before, but each of them knew exactly what it signaled. Izzy shared a horrified glance with Strip as the lights flickered and the ground rumbled beneath them.
"South gate breach, south gate breach!" Rick's voice shouted over their internal radios. "Go, go, go!"
"Oh, no." Izzy whispered. "No, no."
"Let's move!"
Silent except for the sound of their engines, the brigade drove out of their building and into the courtyard in two perfect lines of six, with Izzy leading both of them. It was just like any other drill they'd ever done, except this wasn't staged. Outside, they could hear the whistle of incoming projectiles and to the south, there was a steady plume of smoke.
"Looks like they're going after building thirty-eight." Izzy said, having since regained her composure. "That's one of the warehouses. Deflect and protect."
Rick had named her the captain for a reason. She was analytical, and more outwardly committed than anyone else was. Cars paid attention to Izzy or paid the price, there was no other alternative.
"Go! Maintain airspace!" she ordered, pointing herself towards the ramp and baring her wings.
Crrk. Krnnnk. Izzy looked behind her to the right at the sound of scraping, screeching metal. Strip was trying to transform into his alternate mode, but the damage to his fenders kept the metal from disengaging and sliding into position. It looked painful. Somewhere father back, a similar sound cut through the resonance of nearly two dozen spooling jet engines. Diego's mechanisms weren't cooperating either.
"Either you fly, or go back inside." Izzy barked. "There's no room for error here."
Strip moved to the side as the undamaged cars took proper form and drove off towards the ramp. He tried and tried to so the same, but there was a snag somewhere right under the surface of his front right fender.
This is bad. This is very, very bad.
Above them, a whistle grew louder. He gaze snapped up and instantly he saw the incoming missile, headed for ground zero.
Guns. Come on, guns. You can do this. Work, dang it.
Maybe it was fear or a sudden rush of adrenaline, but in one final push to expose his weapons and wings, the screaming pieces of metal gave way and slid. Chrysler, it hurt, but with trained precision he'd taken aim, fired, and hit the missile as it came down between the buildings. It exploded with a shockwave of heat and deafening sound, raining smoldering embers on the grass.
Strip took off for the ramp and was in the air in no time at all. He circled once inside the courtyard to gain the speed and altitude he needed for fight, listening to the radio chatter and trying to discern what to do. They had to play the offensive and the defensive equally well if they stood a chance of winning any battle.
Before he rose over the buildings to the south, Strip took one last look at Diego, still struggling on the ground. For a moment, he felt guilty. The look on Diego's face would be translated as anger and frustration to anyone else that saw it, but Strip saw fear. It was the same fear he felt, and suddenly their whole scuffle felt extremely stupid.
"I think they're automated." a voice reported over the radio. "These things ain't alive. They're just firing missiles at us."
"How many?" Rick asked.
"I see five." someone else said.
Strip finally reached the battleground and saw what they were talking about. They looked like tiny black tanks, half the size of an average car, but each one of them was armed with no less than a dozen ballistic missiles.
"They're just drawing you out." Rick concluded rather quickly. "They want to see what we're capable of before they put any of their own lives on the line. Dispose of them quickly."
"Daytonas, stay in the air, and shoot the missiles down!" Izzy ordered. "'Birds, run 'em down by whatever means necessary."
The top floor of building thirty-eight was in flames as Strip passed it, locking onto the tank farthest to the right. He swooped out of the sky, right over top of it, and dropped one of his two warheads on it. The resulting explosion triggered the detonation of the tank's remaining unused weapons, creating a massive fireball. Off to his left, three more imploded on themselves as other members of the brigade likewise disposed of them. Just one left.
"Gunfire, on the ground!" Izzy called out. "Diego, fall back! I told you to stay put."
"Just doin' my job." he countered, appearing out of a neighboring building, continuing to fire on the last remaining tank.
"We've got this, fall back!"
Diego was too close to the enemy tool for Strip or anyone else to simply dispose of it via airstrike. The rest of the brigade hung in the air, circling like vultures, helpless and unable to act without harming one of their own.
"Bullets ain't gonna pierce that armor." someone warned him.
Diego didn't back down. Stupid. The tank hesitated as he berated it with his Gatling guns. The camera on top turned slowly from the building it had been targeting to him, and the click of a pin on a primer was the last thing they heard before the explosion.
Someone screamed. Strip wasn't sure whom. He watched in revulsion as the tank's missile disengaged and flew a new course. Shots were fired from above, but none of them hit their target. Diego's face froze in sudden realization a moment before he disappeared in a ball of raging fire. Shrapnel flew. Static filled their radio frequency and eventually went silent. Someone finished the last tank off.
More silence.
"Report." Rick demanded after several seconds of nothing.
No one answered.
"Izzy, report!" he ordered.
"Send in the fire department." her voice wavered and cracked. "We're done here."
Rick met them at the door as they landed in the courtyard, folded their wings in, and filed inside. He looked confused, as if he expected celebrations instead of empty or tear-filled faces. He counted them.
"Wait." he rolled back a little as the last car rolled through the door. "Where's - ?"
No one wanted to say it.
"He's gone, Rick." Someone did.
They continued past their stunned CEO in silence, single file back to their rooms. There was nothing else to do.
Strip took up the rear of the procession, numb. He couldn't shake the look on Diego's face before the missile intercepted him. The fear they shared had been one and the same. They weren't all that different, really, just two cars thrust into an unforgiving world that didn't seem to care at all about what happened to them.
Well, there was only one of them, now.
Strip made a turn instead of following the brigade back. He didn't want to be around anyone. Aimlessly, he wandered through the halls until he heard another engine approaching him from behind. Izzy was following him with a worried look. He pulled over and waited for her.
At first, neither of them said anything. There weren't words to describe how they felt. Their very first battle had ended in a death, and they weren't even fighting real cars yet. How ridiculous was that? They'd trained harder than that. They knew better than that.
"I'm sorry, Izzy." Strip said quietly. "It was my fault."
"What?" she asked incredulously. "Don't be silly, you couldn't do a thing about it."
"He couldn't fly because I crashed into him. He had to fight on the ground because I disabled him. I lost my temper, and we lost him."
There were tears in Izzy's eyes as she reached out to touch him.
"No." she said firmly, though her voice was still struggling not to break. "Listen to me, Strip. He died because he didn't follow orders. Had he gone back inside like I told him to, that wouldn't have happened. He made a mistake, and paid for it. That's no fault of yours."
Strip didn't respond. He knew she was right, but that didn't spare him of the guilt he felt. Slowly, he started driving again.
"Where are you going?" Izzy asked, reluctant to follow.
"I don't know." he said. "But I can't stay here."
He ended up in bodywork, getting those crumpled fenders replaced. The machines doing the repairs hummed as they worked around him. A single TV was playing on the opposite side of the room, a nicety Rick had once added for those stuck in the bodywork booth for an extended time.
It wasn't such a blessing this time. It was tuned to the news channel, and Strip hadn't thought to change it before being locked down in the booth. It showed replay after replay of the battle they'd just fought. The local new crews were having a heyday with it.
"… pointless violence in Auburn Hills. Ford is the suspected instigator…"
"It may have been a win for Chrysler today, Carol, but at what cost? More details to come…"
"… billowing fires were finally put out by the resident fire department here at Chrysler. It's suspected that nearly thirteen million dollars' worth of parts burnt within the building…"
"… could be the start of something much bigger, and much more dangerous. Citizens are now expressing concern for their livelihoods, coming to you live from… "
Strip closed his eyes as the machine tack welded a new panel into place. The sting of the molten metal was minuscule compared to the sight of explosions and burning buildings, but even with eyes closed, he could still see them. Those, and one very frightened face.
Suddenly, the TV turned off, forcing Strip to open his eyes. The machine had just finished applying the last coat of primer when it switched off as well. Funny, Strip thought this machine would apply paint as well.
"Hey." the familiar voice whispered, coming into view. "Feeling better?"
Strip looked at Stacey with a pained expression. By that time, she had to have known everything.
"Silly question, I know." she shook herself, apologizing.
"Stacey, I don't know if I can do this." he said in the same quiet tone he'd used with Izzy earlier. "No, I know I can't. I won't."
"I know." she said softly, reaching out and stroking his sanded fender in a motherly fashion. "That's why I brought you this."
She pulled out a sealed box from behind her. "I put all your video tapes and letters in here. Izzy told me they were important. You didn't tell me you had a girlfriend."
Strip looked at the box, eyes widening. Stacey smiled at him, but the smile couldn't hide the sadness in her eyes.
"I don't understand." he said.
"Pop your hood. I need to do something." she punched a few codes into the machine's nearby control panel.
"Wait, what are you doing?" he was on the borderline of panic. "I – ow!"
The robotic arms of the machine had popped his hood open for him, reached into his engine bay, and pulled out a small box with wires dangling from it all before he could react. He slammed his hood closed, highly alert and feeling somewhat violated.
"What's that?" he asked, his tone warning.
"Relax." Stacey said. "It's your tracker. Without it Rick won't be able to track where you are anymore."
"Are you kickin' me out?" he wondered aloud, looking at his box of belongings, only half of which were technically his.
"No, don't be silly." Stacey waved his concern away. "You're welcome to come back and stay whenever you want. But I don't think you want that, do you?"
She was freeing him, but why? He'd done nothing to earn this. In fact, he felt quite the opposite. His mind raced as she placed the box in his trunk for him.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked as she came back around.
"I'm just trying to do the right thing." she whispered with tears in her eyes. "I don't want to lose you, too. This is your chance to choose what you want to do."
"What about the others?" It wasn't fair to let him go and keep the others here, was it?
"No one's stopping them from leaving. They stay here by choice. I'll watch out for them, and help if the time comes, but right now, you need to fly like the wind." she said with a sudden sense of urgency. "Go and get as far away from this as you can. We'll be fine."
Get out before someone can stop you. That's what she'd meant. Strip rolled out of the booth, wary, but made a line for the door. Stacey watched him go, but didn't move. He stopped and turned back to thank her, but what he said wasn't planned.
"Tell Izzy she's a good leader, will you?" he asked. "Tell her she knows where to find me if she needs me."
The Monaco smiled once more and nodded. "Now, go on."
He went.